New York state’s First Girlfriend Sandra Lee has praised late First Lady Nancy Reagan as a trailblazer. In a post on her Web site, Lee hails Reagan as “a true catalyst of change, in her own impeccably stylish way.”

Lee relates how, when diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987, Nancy decided to have a mastectomy at a time when radiation and chemotherapy were the predominant treatments, and told doctors before her biopsy, “Please go ahead and do it. It won’t take you long, because I was never Dolly Parton.”

Lee praised Nancy’s pioneering “Just Say No” campaign and her later support for stem-cell research for Alzheimer’s, adding, “You were a woman ahead of your time, and you will never be forgotten.”